Considerations of common sense have been removed from European politics

19. 12. 2015.

| source: Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI

In an interview with Czech daily Lidové Noviny published on Saturday, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that “considerations of common sense” have been removed from European politics for some time now.

The Prime Minister explained that “the European political elite is sitting in a closed, ideological shell, which means it has hardly any connection to reality”. The migration crisis “demonstrates the underlying problem”, he said.

Mr. Orbán added that he is pleased that “Europe is slowing finding its feet and is beginning to regard this problem from the viewpoint of common sense. (…) Europe must abandon its suicidal tendencies, and must stand on both feet”, he stressed.

One of the reasons for the Government of Hungary being heavily criticised for its migration policy is that “the mainstream European elite reacts to everything from an ideological stance”, Mr. Orbán said. Another reason is that once immigrants arriving in Europe are granted citizenship, they become left-wing voters. “We have the suspicion that there is also a secret – or not openly acknowledged – importation of voters into Europe”, he added.

Mr. Orbán said that Europe must ask the question why it has lost its ability to forecast the future, and why the European strategies formulated to address these issues have not worked out. European politics must be renewed, he stressed.

The Prime Minister explained that Europe is currently not dealing with the issues that affect its origins, such as its Christian traditions and traditions associated with nations. “Europe has forgotten who or what it actually is, and what the truly important things are”, he said, adding that “in order for it to become strong again, we need a Europe which has self-esteem and a sense of identity”.

Talking about British Prime Minister David Cameron’s letter, in which he raises the idea that the Basic Treaties should be rewritten, Mr. Orbán said that one of the factors which provoked Mr. Cameron to write this letter is that the balance between the EU’s supranational elements and the nation states constituting the European Union has been upset to the disadvantage of the latter. The British Prime Minister is right in advising the EU to see “where we have lost our way”; and this may even bring about the review if the EZ Treaties, he said.

He announced that in February 2016, on the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Visegrád cooperation, the Czechs will launch an initiative, as part of which the peoples of the continent can reconsider where Europe stands at present. “Our goal is to create a vision as a result of this exercise in shared reflection”, he said, adding that we must raise the subject of Brussels wanting to draw the management of the migrant crisis within its own competence. A very important topic could also be the idea that if someone fails to observe the Schengen Agreement, he pointed out. In this case “they should be forced to observe its terms, or be excluded from it altogether”. It would be reasonable to return to the question of “whether it was a correct decision to omit any reference in the European Treaty to our spiritual roots, our Christian foundations”, he said.

He called the idea of a Europe without nations and the establishment of a United States of Europe “an insane and dangerous idea”. Based on the people’s reactions to the migration issue, he was of the opinion that “Europeans will be able to protect themselves and the continent against the insane idea”, he said.

He rejected the approach, which – according to the Prime Minister – still exists but is about to vanish slowly, and based on which Central European countries should be grateful for the funds received and should in exchange “keep quiet”. He said that if the economies of the Central European countries were not performing as well as they are at present, there would be no economic growth in the European Union: there would be recession. “These countries practice effective integration into their economies of the funds placed at their disposal, they use the money they are given well; today we are the engine of the European economy. (…) We are quits, we have nothing to call each other to account for”, he said.

The Prime Minister rejected the quota-based distribution of migrants among EU Member States again, and said that “as an outsider you cannot tell a national community that they must live alongside people whom they do not want to live with”, he explained.

He was of the opinion that experiences of earlier migration waves show that host countries expected unites of labour, but instead “received people”. “We cannot only take their manpower into consideration, because it is the whole human being we get – together with their own cultural identities, the problems they have living with them, and with the fact that they do not at all consider European attitudes to life as a philosophy to be followed”, he added. Today, everywhere in Europe, in countries where there are a large number of people who have arrived from elsewhere, there are parallel societies. One of the greatest advantage of Central Europe however is that there are no such parallel societies, he said, adding that in the future, this will be a competitive advantage for the region.

The Prime Minister was of the opinion that human traffickers, human rights activists and pro-immigrant European politicians have established a unique coalition by “not simply letting migrants in: they are transporting them here”.

Regarding the future, Mr. Orbán said that winter will not stop mass migration. He added that so far only national solutions have reached success in managing mass migration, but there is no common European solution.